featured!

I was so pleased to find out that I was featured on the UPPERCASE blog today. I had entered a contest called “feeling bookish?” where I  created a self portrait of myself as a book cover. Fun! Here is what I submitted:

window seat

I’ve just returned from a short visit to my past, reconnecting with friends and relatives in the small prairie village where I spent most of my insecure teenage years. It’s weird to go back to a place where I once existed as a different person. I think I’ve changed so much… but maybe I haven’t… maybe now I just like myself more.

Either way, it felt great to connect with old friends as the me that I am now.

The visit’s highlights were: building forts, eating rhubarb pie and apple platz, re-introducing myself to my 93-year old grandma over and over, late night chats, and declaring bum wars on the trampoline.

cheap chair

This is the sweet green armchair I met at the thrift store this week. 10 bucks!

Do I need a new armchair? Not really. Do I have space in my house for a new armchair? Not entirely. Do I care? Not at all.

Welcome to the family, green chair.

graphic travelogues

I spent last weekend vicariously traveling to faraway places, via graphic novels by 3 of my favorite cartoonists.

French Milk: Lucy Knisley’s angsty account of six weeks in Paris. Full of delicious drawings and descriptions of French food, accounts of visits to Hemingway’s old haunts, an homage to Oscar Wilde’s grave, countless museums & galleries, and random details of her weird Parisian apartment…

Burma Chronicles: Guy Delisle’s stories throughout the year he spent in Rangoon. I’d read (and re-read) Pyongyang before, and this one is also highly eligible for another read-through before I return it to the library.  I love the way he describes cultural eccentricities and awkward situations. And his drawings of his large-headed son Louis: adorable.

Carnet de Voyage: Craig Thompson’s journal through his travels in Morocco and Western Europe. He draws beautiful, lyrical stories that are punctuated by still portraits and landscapes of the people and places he encounters. He also bares his emotions honestly, and ultimately tells a story that is less about faraway lands and spicy food than it is about being human.

hiking {bears}

camping {bears}

dot dot records

Joel Armstrong: a darn good dj + electronic music producer + designer/programmer + human. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Joel to re-design the logo for his record label dot dot records. This here is the awesome result of our creative/genius/inspired collaboration.

summer is:

sketching in the park

new studio

kris atomic

Today I discovered Kris Atomic via design is mine. Her illustrations make me want to try gouache again.

I love these single image narratives best.